1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-forming job managing apparatus for managing an image-forming job issued from at least one terminal to an image-forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image-forming system is now being proposed, in which a plurality of servers for controlling printers with an image-forming function and a plurality of client terminals, such as personal computers, are connected to a LAN (Local Area Network).
In the image-forming system, when a user operates their client terminal to issue an instruction to print out a document, they designate a destination printer. At this time, an image-forming job is issued from the client computer to the server of the printer designated as a destination. The image-forming job includes, as well as data to be actually printed, information such as a document name, a sheet size, a print range, the number of copies and a magnification, etc.
Each server registers, in a queue, image-forming jobs issued from client terminals and manages them. Each server controls a printer in its charge on the basis of the image-forming jobs registered in the queue, thereby causing each printer to execute an image-forming process.
In this image-forming system, a list of image-forming jobs registered in the queue in a server can be displayed on the display of a client terminal, or information, such as the number of copies, included in an image-forming-job can be changed using a client terminal.
However, in the image-forming system, image-forming jobs registered in the queue in a server cannot be transferred to another server. Accordingly, if, for example, a user comes to be aware of their erroneous designation of a printer after they issue an instruction to print out a document, they must change the designated printer in a complicated procedure as described below.
First, the user accesses the server of the printer erroneously designated from their client terminal, thereby displaying a list of image-forming jobs on the display of the client terminal. After that, the user selects the image-forming job addressed to the wrong destination, and instructs the server to stop the job. As a result, the accessed server stops the image-forming job.
Subsequently, the user calls for, to the client terminal, the document included in the image-forming job addressed to the wrong destination. Then, the user again instructs the terminal to print out the document. At this time, the user designates a correct printer as a destination. As a result, an image-forming job is issued to the server of the printer designated as the destination, whereby the printer executes a document copying process on the basis of the image-forming job.
In the light of the above, there is a need for providing an image-forming job managing apparatus for managing an image-forming job issued from at least one terminal to an image-forming apparatus, which can transfer, by a simple procedure, an image-forming job to another image-forming job managing apparatus on a network.
A plurality of embodiments of the present invention provide an image-forming-job managing apparatus for managing image-forming jobs issued from at least one terminal to a first image-forming apparatus, the image-forming-job managing apparatus comprising: a communication section configured to execute communication with at least a second image-forming apparatus connected thereto via a communication line; a job storage configured to sequentially store the image-forming jobs issued from the terminal; a job display control section configured to display, on a display, information contained in the image-forming jobs that are stored in the job storage, upon receiving a request for displaying the image-forming jobs; and a job transfer section configured to extract one of the image-forming jobs stored in the job storage, upon receiving a request for changing an output destination of the one of the image-forming jobs, thereby transferring it to the second image-forming apparatus designated as the output destination, via the communication section.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.